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BRIMSTONE BILL

By Malcolm Jameson

Bill was a crook, a hell-fire-damnation specialist in the
art of collecting cash. A marvelous orator—with gadgets.
But Commander Bullard had a good use for a bad actor!

The prisoners were herded into the room and
ranged against one of the bulkheads. Captain Bullard
sat stiffly behind his desk regarding the group
of ruffians with a gaze of steely appraisal.
Lieutenant Benton and a pair of pistoled bluejackets
were handling the prisoners, while Commander
Moore stood at the back of Bullard's desk, looking
on. Then Bullard gave a jerk of his head and the
procession started. One by one they shuffled to
the spot before his desk, clanking their heavy
chains at each dragging step. And one by one the
captain of the Pollux surveyed them, critically and
coldly, comparing their appearance and their
marks with the coded descriptions in the
ethergram on his desk.

These were the survivors of the notorious Ziffler
gang, captured on Oberon the month before, after
the encounter on the lip of a little crater that the
Polliwogs had already come to call the "Battle of
the Mirrors." The first, of course, was Egon
Ziffler himself, all his arrogance and bluster melted
away long since. Then came Skul Drosno, his
chief aid, and there followed ten other plug-uglies
who had survived the holocaust of reflected fire.
All were big hulking brutes of Callistans,
ray-blackened, scarred and hairy. The last and
thirteenth man was of a different type altogether.
Bullard waited in silence until he had ranged
himself before his desk.

"Paul Grogan," called Benton, checking the final
name of the list.

"Hm-m-m," said Bullard, looking at the miserable
specimen standing at a grotesque version of
"attention" before him, and then glancing at the
Bureau of Justice's ethergram summary of his
pedigree. After that he studied the prisoner in
detail. He was a queer fish indeed to have been
caught in such a haul.

The self-styled Grogan was a wizened, under-fed
little fellow and bore himself with an astonishing
blend of cringing and swagger. The strangest
thing about him was his head, which was oversize
for his body. He had a fine forehead topped with
a leonine mane of iron-gray hair, which after a
cursory glance might have been called a noble
head. But there was an occasional shifty flicker
of the eyes and a twitching at the mouth that
belied that judgment. Bullard referred to the
Bureau's memo again.

"Grogan," it said, "probably Zander, alias Ardwell,
alias Nordham, and many other names. Small-time
crook and chiseler, card sharp, confidence
man. Arrested often throughout Federation for
petty embezzlement, but no convictions. Not
known to have connection with Ziffler gang."

"Hm-m-m," said Bullard again. He had placed
Grogan, et cetera, now in his memory. It had
been a long time since the paths of the two had
crossed, but Bullard never forgot things that
happened to him. Nor did he see fit to recall it too
distinctly to his prisoner, for he was not altogether
proud of the recollection. But to check his own
powers of retention, he asked:

"You operated on Venus at one time—as an
itinerant preacher, if the record is correct—under
the name of Brimstone Bill?"

"Why, yes, sir, now that you mention it," admitted
Brimstone Bill, with a sheepish grin. "But,
oh, sir, I quit that long ago. It didn't pay."

"Really?" remarked Bullard. That was not his
recollection of it. He had visited Venus in those
days as a Passed Midshipman. One night, in the
outskirts of Erosburg, they had curiously
followed a group of skymen into a lighted hall
emblazoned with the sign, "Come, See and Hear
BRIMSTONE BILL—Free Admittance." And
they went, saw and heard. That bit of investigation
had cost the youthful Bullard just a month's
pay—all he had with him. For he had fallen under
the spell of the fiery oratory of the little man with
the big bushy head and flashing eyes, and after
groveling before the rostrum and confessing
himself a wicked boy, he had turned his pockets
wrongside out to find some worthy contribution to
further "the cause." Bullard winced whenever he
thought of it.

"No, sir, it didn't pay," said the little man. "In
money, yes. But not in other ways."

"The police, eh?"

"Oh, not at all, sir," protested Brimstone Bill.
"Everything I ever did was strictly legal. It was
the suckers ... uh, the congregation, that is. They
got wise to me. A smart-Aleck scientist from the
gormel mills showed me up one night—"

He lifted his manacled hands and turned them
so the palms showed outward. Deep in each palm
was a bright-red, star-shaped scar.

"They crucified me. When the police cut me
down the next day, I swore I'd never preach again.
And I won't, so help me."

"You are right about that," said Bullard grimly,
satisfied that his memory was as good as he
thought it was. "This last time you have stretched
your idea of what's legal beyond its elastic limit.
The gang you were caught with is on its way to
execution."

Brimstone Bill emitted a howl and fell to his
knees, whining and pleading.

After they had all gone, Bullard sat back and
relaxed. He promptly dismissed Ziffler and his
mob from his mind. The Oberon incident was
now a closed book. It was one more entry in the
glorious log of the Pollux. It was the
future—what was to happen next—that mattered.

The Pollux had stood guard over the ruined
fortress of Caliban until the relief ships arrived.
Now she was homeward bound. At Lunar Base a
richly deserved and long-postponed rest awaited
her and her men. And there was not a man on
board but would have a wife or sweetheart waiting
for him at the receiving dock. Leave and liberty
were ahead, and since it was impossible to spend
money in the ship's canteen, every member of the
crew had a year's or more accrued pay on the
books. Moreover there would be bonuses and
prize money for the destruction of the Ziffler gang.
Never in the history of the service had a ship
looked forward to such a satisfactory homecoming,
for everyone at her arrival would be gayly waving
bright handkerchiefs, laughing and smiling. Her
chill mortuary chamber down below was empty,
as were the neat rows of bunks in the sick bay.
The Pollux had achieved her triumph without
casualties.

It was on that happy day of making port that
Bullard was idly dreaming when the sharp double
rap on the door informed him that Moore was
back. And the executive officer would hardly have
come back so soon unless something important had
turned up. So when Bullard jerked himself upright
again and saw the pair of yellow flimsies in Moore's
hand, his heart sank at once. Orders. Orders and
always more orders! Would they never let the
ship rest?

"Now what?" asked Bullard, warily.

"The Bureau of Justice," said Moore, laying
down the first signal, "has just ordered the
immediate payment to all hands of the Ziffler bonus.
It runs into handsome figures."

Bullard grunted, ignoring the message. Of
course. The men would get a bonus and a handsome
one. But why at this particular moment?
He knew that Moore was holding back the bad
news.

"Go on," growled Bullard, "let's have it!"

Moore shuffled his feet unhappily, expecting an
outburst of rage. Then, without a word he handed
Bullard the second message. It read:

Pollux will stop at Juno Skydocks en route Luna to
have hull scraped. Pay crew and grant fullest liberty
while there. Implicit compliance with this order
expected.

Grand Admiral.

Bullard glared at the thing, then crushed it to a
tight ball in his fist and hurled it from him. He
sat for a moment cursing softly under his breath
during which the red haze of rage almost blinded
him. He would have preferred anything to that
order—to turn about and go out of the orbit of
Neptune for another battle, if there had been need
for It, would have been preferable. But this!

He kicked his chair backward and began pacing
the room like a caged tiger. It was such a lousy,
stinking trick to do—and to him and his Pollux
of all people! To begin with, the ship had no
sky-barnacles on her hull, as the pestiferous little
ferrous-consuming interplanetary spores were
called on account of the blisters they raised on the
hull. And if she had, Juno was no place to get
rid of them. Its skydock was a tenth-rate service
station fit only for tugs and mine layers. The
twenty men employed there could not possibly be
expected to go over the hull under a month, and
the regulations forbade the ship's crew working
on the hull while in a planetary dockyard. The
dockyard workers' guilds had seen to that.
Moreover, Juno was not even on the way to Luna, but
far beyond, since from where the Pollux was at
the moment, the Earth lay between her and the
Sun, while Juno was in opposition. It was
damnable!

Bullard growled in midstride and kicked
viciously at an electrician's testing case that stood
in his path. That wasn't all—not by a damsite!
Juno was one of the vilest dumps inside the
Federation. It was an ore-gathering and
provisioning point for the asteroid prospectors and
consequently was populated by as vicious a mob
of beachcombers and their ilk as could be found
in the System. Juno literally festered with gin
mills, gambling hells and dives of every description.
No decent man could stand it there for three
days. He either left or took to drink. And, what
with what was sold to drink on Juno, that led to
all the rest—ending usually in drugs or worse. It
was in that hell hole that he had been ordered to
set down his fine ship for thirty days. When he
thought of his fine boys and the eager women
impatiently awaiting their homecoming, he boiled.

"Shall I protest the order, sir?" asked Moore,
hopefully.

"Certainly not," snapped Bullard, halting abruptly
and facing him. "I never protest orders. I
carry 'em out. Even if the skies fall. I'll carry
this one out, too, damn 'em. But I'll make the
fellow who dictated it—"

He suddenly checked himself. He had been
about to add, "regret he ever had," when he
remembered in a flash that Moore's family was in
some way connected with the Fennings. Only
Senator Fenning could have inspired the change
of plans. The grand admiral had issued the order
and signed it, of course, but he had inserted the
clue as to why in its own last redundant sentence.
"Implicit compliance is expected," indeed! No
admiral would be guilty of such a tacit admission
that perhaps not all orders need be strictly
complied with. That sentence meant, as plainly as
if the crude words themselves had been employed,
this:

"Bullard, old boy, we know this looks goofy and
all wrong to you, but we're stuck. You've been
chosen as the sacrificial goat this year, so be a
good sport and take it. None of your tricks, old
fellow. We know you can dope out a way to
annul any fool order, but don't let us down on
this one."

The line of Dullard's mouth tightened. He sat
down quietly in his chair and said to the expectant
Moore as matter-of-factly as if he had been
arranging a routine matter:

"Have the course changed for Juno, and inform
the admiral that he can count on his orders being
carried out to the letter."

Commander Moore may have been surprised at
Bullard's tame surrender, but, after all, one was
more helpless sometimes in dealing with one's own
admiral than with the most ruthless and resourceful
enemy. He merely said, "Aye, aye, sir," and
left the room.

Two weeks rolled by, and then another. They
were well within the orbit of Jupiter now, and
indeed the hither asteroids. Hungry eyes now
and then looked at the pale-blue tiny disk with
its silvery dot companion as it showed on the
low-power visifield and thought of home. Home was
so near and yet so far. For the ship was veering
off to the left, to pass close inside Mars and then
to cut through beyond the Sun and far away again
to where the miserable little rock of Juno rolled
along with its nondescript population.

During those days the usual feverish activity
of the ship died down until it became the dullest
sort of routine. Men of all ratings were thinking,
"What's the use?" Moore and Benton were everywhere,
trying to explain away the unexplainable,
but the men did not react very well. Many were
beginning to wonder whether the service was what
it was cracked up to be, and not a few were
planning a big bust the very first night they hit the
beach on Juno. It was not what they had planned,
but it seemed to be what was available. Only
Bullard and Lieutenant MacKay kept apart and
appeared to take little interest in what was to happen next.

Alan MacKay was a newcomer to the service,
and his specialty was languages. So he had filled
in what time he had to spare from the routine
duties by frequenting the prison spaces and
chatting with the Callistans in the brig. He had
managed to compile an extraordinary amount of
information relating to the recent war as seen from
behind the scenes on the other side, and he was
sure it was going to be of value to the Department.
Moreover, he had gleaned additional data on the
foray to Oberon. All of which would make the
prosecutor's job more thorough when the day of
the trial came. As for Bullard, he kept to his
cabin, pacing the deck for hours at a stretch and
wrestling with his newest problem.

His thoughts were leaping endlessly in a circuit
from one item to the next and on and on until he
came back to the point of departure and began all
over again. There was the ship, the crew, and the
devoted women waiting for the return of the crew,
and the fat entries in the paymaster's books that
meant so much to them both. And there was the
squalid town of Herapolis with its waiting, hungry
harpies with a thousand proven schemes for
getting at that money for themselves; and there was
the cunning and avaricious overlord of the
asteroids, their landlord and creditor, who would in the
end transfer the funds to his own account. That
man also sat in the upper chamber of the Federation
Grand Council and was a power in Interplanetary
politics. His name was Fenning—Senator
Fenning—and he dominated the committee
that dealt out appropriations to the Patrol
Force. And from that point Bullard's mind would
jump to the Tellurian calendar and he would
recall that it was now March on Earth, and therefore
just about the time that the annual budget was
in preparation. Which in turn would lead him
back to the General Service Board, which dealt
on the one hand with the Force as a master, but
with the Grand Council as perennial supplicant
for funds on the other. Which naturally took him
to the necessities of the grand admiral and the
needs of the Service as a whole. Which brought
him back to the Pollux's orders and started the
vicious circle all over again.

For Bullard was cynical and wise enough in the
ways of the world to have recognized at the outset
that the ship's proposed stay at Juno yard was
neither more nor less than a concealed bribe to
the honorable senator. Perhaps it had been a bad
season in the asteroid mines and his debtors had
gotten behind. If so, they would need a needling
of good, honest cash to square accounts. Perhaps
it was merely Fenning's insatiable lust for ever
more money, or maybe he only insisted on the
maneuver to demonstrate his authority. Or
perhaps, even, having bulldozed the Patrol Force into
erecting a small and inadequate skydock where
either an effective one or none at all was needed,
he felt he must have some use made of it to justify
his prior action. Whatever Fenning's motives
really were, they were ignoble. No exigency of
the service required the Pollux to visit Juno
now—or ever. And to Bullard's mind, no exigency of
politics or personal ambition could condone what
was about to be done to the Pollux's crew.

It was the ethical content of the problem that
bothered Bullard. Practically it was merely
annoying. With himself on board, his veteran
officers and a not inconsiderable nucleus of tried and
true men who had been in the ship for years, she
could not go altogether to hell no matter how long
they had to stay on Juno. He knew he could count
on many—perhaps half—going ashore only
occasionally; the other half could be dealt with sternly
should they exceed all reasonable bounds for shore
behavior after a hard and grueling cruise. But in
both halves he would have to deal with discontent.
The decent, far-sighted, understanding men
already resented the interference with their plans,
since there was no sufficiently plausible reason
given for it. They would accept it, as men have
from the beginning of time, but not gracefully or
without grumbling. Then the riotous element
would feel, if unduly harsh disciplinary measures
were applied, that, somehow, they had been let
down. Wasn't the very fact they had been sent to
Juno for liberty and paid off with it an invitation
to shoot the works?

There were other courses of action open to him,
Captain Bullard knew. The easiest was inaction.
Let the men have their fling. Given a few months
in space again, he could undo all the damage. All?
That was it. Nothing could undo the disappointment
of the women waiting at Earth and Luna—nor
the demoralization of the men at not getting
there, for that matter. Nor could the money
coaxed or stolen from them by the Junoesque
creatures of Fenning ever be recovered. Moreover,
the one thing Bullard did not like was
inaction. If he was already half mutinous himself,
what of the men? No. He would do something
about it.

Well, he could simply proceed to Luna, take the
blame, and perhaps be dismissed. He could give
the story to the magnavox in the hope that by
discrediting Senator Fenning and the System, his
sacrifice might be worth the making. But would
it? Would the magnavox dare put such a story
on the ether? And wouldn't that be letting the
admirals down? For they knew his dilemma quite
as well as he did. They had chosen, chosen for
the good of the Service. The System could not
be broken, or it would have been long ago. It
was the Pollux's turn to contribute the oil that
greased the machine.

Bollard sighed. Juno was less than a week
away now, and he saw no way out. Time after
time in his gloom he was almost ready to admit
he was beaten. But the instincts and training of
a lifetime kept him from the actual confession.
There must be some way of beating Fenning! It
must be a way, of course, which would cast no
reflection on the grand admiral. Or the ship. Or
the crew. And, to be really successful, no
ineradicable discredit upon himself. Bullard got up,
rumpled his hair, and resumed his tigerish pacing.

It was Lieutenant MacKay who interrupted his
stormy thoughts. MacKay had something to say
about the prisoners. He had just about finished
pumping them dry and was prepared to draw up
the report. There were several recommendations
he had to make, but he wanted his captain's opinion
and approval first.

"It's about that fellow Zander—the Earthman,
you know—" he began.

"Oh, Brimstone Bill?" grinned Bullard. He was
rather glad MacKay had broken in on him. The
sense of futility he had been suffering lately had
begun to ingrow and make him bitter.

"Yes, sir. He's a highly undesirable citizen, of
course, but I'm beginning to feel a little sorry for
him. The old scalawag hadn't anything to do with
the Caliban massacre. He just happened to be
there when Ziffler came, and escaped being killed
only by luck. He was dealer in a rango game
when they landed, and his boss had a couple of
Callistan bouncers. Ziffler gave 'em the chance of
joining up with him, which they did and took
Brimstone along with 'em, saying he was O.K.
Brimstone went along because it was that or else.
He had no part in anything."

"I see," said Bullard, and thought a moment.
"But I haven't anything to do with it. What
happens hereafter is up to the court. You should
submit your report to them."

After MacKay left, Bullard's thoughts turned
upon his first encounter with the little charlatan
many years before on Venus. Somehow, the fellow
had had a profound effect on him at the time.
So much so, in fact, that it came as something of
a shock the day of his preliminary examination to
find that the man had been a fake all along.
Bullard had been tempted to think him a good man
who had eventually gone wrong. Now he knew
better. But as he continued his train of reminiscence,
something suddenly clicked inside his head.

He sat bolt upright, and a gleam of hope began
to dawn in his eyes. Brimstone Bill had a peculiar
talent which might come in very handy in the
trying weeks ahead. Could he use it with safety
to himself? That had to be considered, for dealing
with a professional crook had risks. Yet,
according to Brimstone's own admission, it had been
a gormel engineer that had shown him up, and
Bullard figured that if a biophysics engineer could
match wits with the grizzled trickster and win, he
could. Perhaps—

But there was no perhaps about it. Bullard's
fingers were already reaching for his call button,
and a moment later Benton stood before him.

"Go down to the brig," directed the captain, "and
bring that man Zander up here. Take his irons
off first as I do not like to talk to men bound like
animals. The fellow is a cheap crook, but he is
harmless physically."

While he waited for Benton's return, Bullard
explored the plan he had already roughly outlined in
his mind. By pitting Brimstone Bill against
Fenning he hoped to foil the greater scoundrel. But
would he fall between two stools in the doing of
it? He must also pit himself against the
swindler, or else he would simply have enabled one
crook to outsmart another without profit other
than the gratification of spite. He had also to
think of the other possible costs. The grand
admiral must have no cause for complaint that
there had been any evasion of his orders. Likewise
Fenning must have no grievance that he dared
utter out loud. There remained the item of the
reputation of the Pollux and its men.

He puckered his brow for a time over that one.
Then he relaxed. There were reputations and
reputations, and extremes both ways. Some
regarded one extreme with great favor, others
preferred the other. Bullard liked neither, but for
practical reasons preferred to embrace one for a
time rather than its alternate. He would chance
a little ridicule. After all, people might smile
behind their hands at what a Polliwog might do,
but no one ever curled a lip in the face of one
and afterward had his face look the same. Pollux
men had quite a margin of reputation, when it
came to that, so he dismissed the matter from his
mind. From then on he sat and grinned or frowned
as this or that detail of his proposed course of
action began to pop out in anticipation.

When Brimstone Bill was brought in, there was
no hint in Bullard's bearing that he had softened
his attitude toward the prisoner one whit. He
stared at him with cold, unsmiling sternness.
"Zander," he said, drilling him with his eyes,
"you are in a bad jam. Do you want to die along
with those other gorillas?"

"As the arresting officer I am in a position to
do you a great deal of good or harm. If you will
play ball with me, I can guarantee you a commutation.
Maybe more—much more." He uttered the
last words slowly as if in some doubt as to how
much more. "Will you do it?"

"Oh, sir," cried Brimstone in an ecstasy of relief,
for it was plain to see he had suffered during his
languishment in the brig, "I'll do anything you
say—"

"On my terms?" Bullard was hard as a rock.

"On any terms—Oh, yes, sir ... just tell me—"

"Benton! Kindly leave us now while I talk
with this man. Stay close to the call signal."

Bullard never took his eyes off the receding back
of his lieutenant until the door clicked to behind
it. Then he dropped his hard-boiled manner like
a mask.

"Sit down, Brimstone Bill, and relax. I'm more
friendly to you than you think." He waved to a
chair and Brimstone sat down, looking a little
frightened and uncertain. Then, proceeding on
the assumption that a crook would understand an
ulterior motive where he would distrust an honest
one, Bullard dropped his voice to a low conversational—or
rather conspiratorial—tone, and said:

"Everybody needs money. You do. And—well,
a captain of a cruiser like this has obligations that
the admiralty doesn't think about. I could use
money, too. You are a clever moneymaker and
can make it in ways I can't. I'm going to let you
out of the jug and put you in the way of making
some."

Brimstone Bill was keenly listening now and the
glint of greed brightened his foxy eyes. This man
in uniform was talking his language; he was a
fellow like himself—no foolishness about him.
Brimstone furtively licked his lips. He had had
partners before, too, and that usually worked out
pretty well, also. He might make a pretty good
bargain yet.

"We are on our way to Juno where we will stop
awhile. I am going to let you go ashore there and
do your stuff. You'll be given my protection, you
can keep the money here in my safe, and you can
sleep here nights. You had a pretty smooth racket
there on Venus, as I remember it. If you work it
here, we'll clean up. After we leave, we'll split the
net take fifty-fifty. That'll give you money enough
to beat the charges against you and leave you a
stake. All I want you to do is preach the way
you did on Venus."

While Bullard was talking, Brimstone grew
brighter and brighter. It was beginning to look
as if the world was his oyster. But at the last
sentence he wilted.

"Yeah. I ain't no good without 'em. And the
fellow that made 'em is dead."

He talked on a few minutes more, but Bullard
interrupted him. He called in Benton and told
him to take notes.

"Go on," he told Brimstone Bill. "We'll make
you a set."

It took about an hour before Benton had all the
information he needed. Brimstone was hazy as
to some of the features of his racket, but Bullard
and the young officer were way ahead of him all
the time.

"Can do?" asked Bullard, finally.

"Can do," declared Benton with a grin, slamming
his notebook shut. "I'll put the boys in the repair
shop right at it. They won't have the faintest
notion what we want to use 'em for."

Benton rose. As far as that went, Benton
himself was still somewhat in the fog, but he had
served with his skipper long enough to know that
when he was wearing a certain, inward kind of
quizzical expression that something out of the
ordinary was cooking. His talent for a peculiar
oblique approach to any insoluble problem was
well known to those about him. Wise ones did as
they were told and asked questions, if ever, afterward.

"On your way out, Benton," added Bullard,
"take our friend down to the chaplain's room—we
left Luna in such a hurry, you know, the chaplain
missed the ship—and let him bunk there. I'll see
that suitable entry is made in the log. And you
might tell Commander Moore that I'd like to see
him."

When Benton and Brimstone had left, Bullard
leaned back in his chair and with hands clasped
behind his neck gazed contemplatively at the
overhead. So far, so good. Now to break the news to
Moore.

"I've been thinking, Moore," he said when his
executive came in, "that we have been a little lax
in one matter. I was thinking of ... uh, spiritual
values. I'm sorry now that the chaplain missed
the ship. Do you realize that we have made no
pretense at holding any sort of service since we
blasted off on this cruise?"

Moore's eyes bugged a little. The skipper, he
was thinking, must have overdone his recent
worrying. Or something. Bullard had always
been punctiliously polite to the chaplain, but—

"So," went on Bullard calmly, still gazing
placidly at the maze of wires and conduits
hanging from the deck plates over him, "I have made
appropriate arrangements to rectify that lack. I
find that the Earthman we took along with the
Ziffler outfit was not one of them but a hostage
they had captured. He is an itinerant preacher—a
free-lance missionary, so to speak. I have
released him from the brig and installed him in the
chaplain's room, and after he has had a chance to
clean up and recover, he will talk to the men
daily."

It was well that Moore's eyes were firmly tied
to their sockets, for if they had bugged before,
they bulged dangerously now. Bullard had brooded
too much. Bullard was mad!

"Oh," assured Bullard, "there is nothing to
worry about. The man is still a prisoner at large
awaiting action by the Bureau of Justice. But
otherwise he will have the run of the ship. And,
I should add, the run of the town while we are
on Juno. He calls himself, oddly enough, Brimstone
Bill, but he explains that he works close to
the people and they prefer less dignity."

Moore gasped, but there seemed to be nothing to
say. Bullard had not consulted him, he had been
merely telling him. Unless he had the boldness to
pronounce his captain unwell and forcibly assume
command, there was nothing to do but accept it.
And with a husky, "Aye, aye," he did.

It was the night before they made Juno that the
long unheard twitter of bos'n's pipes began peeping
and cheeping throughout the ship. At the call,
the bos'n's mates took up the cry and the word,
"Rig church in the fo'c's'le ri-ight a-awa-a-ay!"
went resounding through the compartments. Bullard
clung tenaciously to the immemorial old ship
customs. The sound of bunks being cleared away
and the clatter of benches being put up followed
as the crew's living quarters were transformed into
a temporary assembly hall. They had been told
that the missionary brought aboard at Oberon had
a message for them. They had not been told what
its subject was, but their boredom with black space
was immense and they would have gone, anyway,
if only from curiosity. The text for the evening
was "The Gates of Hell Are Yawning Wide."

Two hours earlier Benton had reported that all
was in readiness for the test of Brimstone's
persuasive powers and that the three petty officer
assistants picked by him had been instructed in
their job. A special box had been rigged at one
corner of the hall for the use of the captain and
executive. Consequently, when "Assembly" went,
Bullard waited only long enough for the men to
be seated when he marched in with Moore and
took his place at one corner of the stage that had
been set up.

Brimstone Bill appeared in a solemn outfit made
up for him by the ship's tailor. The setting and
the clothes had made a new man of him. No
longer was he the shifty-looking, cringing
prisoner, but a man of austerity and power whose
flashing eyes more than made amends for his poor
physique. He proceeded to the center of the
stage, glared at his audience a moment, then flung
an accusing finger at them.

"Hell is waiting for you!" he exploded, then
stepped back and shook his imposing mane and
continued to glare at them. There was not a titter
or sneer in the crowd. The men were sitting upright,
fascinated, looking back at him with staring
eyes and mouths agape. He had hit them where
they lived. Moore looked about him in a startled
way and nudged Bullard.

"Can you tie that?" he whispered, awe-struck.
He had been in the ship many years and had never
seen anything like it. All the skymen he knew
had been more concerned with the present and the
immediate future than the hereafter, and the
Polliwogs were an especially godless lot. The
followers of their own chaplain could be numbered on
the fingers of the two hands.

Brimstone Bill went on. Little by little he
warmed to his subject until he soon arrived at a
stage where he ranted and raved, jumped up and
down, tore his hair and beat his breast. He
thundered denunciations, pleaded and threatened,
storming all over the place purple-faced. His
auditors quailed in their seats as he told off their
shortcomings and predicted the dire doom that
they were sure to achieve. His theology was
simple and primitive. His pantheon consisted of but
two personages—the scheming devil and himself,
the savior. His list of punishable iniquities was
equally simple. The cardinal sins were the
ordinary personal petty vices—drinking, smoking,
gambling, dancing and playing about with loose
women. There was but one redeeming virtue,
SUPPORT THE CAUSE!

That was all there was to it. An hour of
exhortation and a collection. When he paused at the
end of his culminating outpouring of fiery oratory,
he asked for volunteers to gather in the offerings.
Three petty officers stood up, received commodious
leather bags, and went among the audience stuffing
them with whatever the men present had in their
pockets. For no one withheld anything, however
trifling. The sermon, if it could be called that,
was an impressive success. Then the lights came
on bright, Brimstone Bill left the stage clutching
the three bags, and the men filed out.

"Amazing," said Moore, as he sat with Bullard
and watched the show. "Why, the fellow is an
arrant mountebank!"

The next day saw a very different atmosphere
in the ship. About two thirds of the crew had
heard the preaching, the remainder being on duty.
Those went about their tasks silently and thoughtfully,
as if pondering their manifold sins. They
had to take an enormous amount of kidding from
their shipmates and a good many black eyes were
in evidence by the time the ship slid down into
her landing skids at Juno Skydock. Bullard did
not let that disturb him; to him it was a healthful
sign.

As soon as the ship was docked, he went out
and met the dockmaster, who, as he had suspected,
was an incompetent drone. No, he had only fourteen
men available—he had not been expecting the
ship—they would get at the job tomorrow or next
day—or at least part of them. No, there was a
local rule against working overtime—no, the ship's
force could not help—six Earth weeks, he thought,
barring accidents, ought to do the trick. Oh, yes,
they would be very thorough. At Juno they were
always thorough about everything.

Moore started threatening the man, stating he
would report him to the grand admiral for
inefficiency, but all Bullard said was:

"Skip it, you're wasting breath. These people
have just two speeds—slow ahead and stop. Put
pressure on them and they backfire. Go back
aboard and post the liberty notice. Unlimited
liberty except for the men actually needed to
stand watch. And see that this goat gets a copy."

Moore shook his head. Something had happened
to Bullard. Of course, the man was up
against a stone wall, but he could at least make a
show of a fight. It was a terrible thing to see a
fighting man give up so easily. In the meantime
Bullard had walked away and was talking with
Brimstone Bill and Benton, who had just emerged
from the lock and were looking around.

There were lively doings ashore that night.
Most of the contingent that had not heard the
Rev. Zander's moving sermon went as early as
possible, ostensibly to look around and do a little
shopping. In the end they wound up by getting
gloriously drunk. It was a bedraggled and
miserable-looking lot that turned up at the ship
the next morning and there were many stragglers.
A patrol had to be sent out to comb the dives and
find the missing ones. Many had been robbed or
cheated of all they had, and some had been
indiscreet enough to draw all their money before
they went. Captain Bullard lined up the most
serious of the offenders at "mast" and handed out
the usual routine punishments—a few days'
restriction to the ship.

After that things were different. The next day
Benton and Brimstone had succeeded in renting an
empty dance hall. As Bullard had guessed, things
were dull that year in Herapolis. A gang of
enthusiastic volunteers—Polliwog converts to
Brimstone's strange doctrines—busied themselves in
making the place ready as a tabernacle. The last
touch was a neon sign bearing the same wording
Bullard had seen on that other tabernacle in
steamy Venus. Brimstone Bill was about to do
his stuff in a wholesale way.

That afternoon when work was done, the entire
liberty party marched in formation to the hall and
there listened to another of Brimstone's fiery
bursts of denunciation. The denizens of the town
looked on at the swinging legs and arms of the
marching battalion and wondered what it was all
about. They supposed it was some newfangled
custom of the Patrol Force and that whatever it
was, it would soon be over and then they would
have plenty of customers. The barkeeps got out
their rags and polished the bars; gamblers made a
last-minute check-up of the magnetic devices that
controlled their machines; and the ladies of the
town dabbed on the last coat of their already
abundant make-up.

But no customers came that night. For hours
they could hear the booming, ranting voice of
Brimstone roaring about Hell and Damnation,
punctuated by periods of lusty singing, but except
for an occasional bleary-eyed miner, no patron
appeared to burden their tills and lighten their
hearts. At length the strange meeting broke up
and the men marched back to their ship in the
same orderly formation they had come.

This went on for a week. A few at a time, the
members of the first liberty party recovered from
their earlier debauch and ventured ashore again,
but even those were soon snatched from circulation
as their shipmates persuaded them to hear
Brimstone "just once." Once was enough. After
that they joined the nocturnal demonstration. It
was uncanny. It was unskymanlike. Moreover,
it was lousy business. Spies from the townspeople
camp who peered through windows came back and
reported there was something funnier about it
than that. Every night a collection was taken up,
and it amounted to big money, often requiring
several men to carry the swag back.

Strong-arm squads searched the town's flophouses
to find out where the pseudo-evangelist was
staying, but in vain. They finally discovered he
was living on the Pollux. A committee of local
"merchants" called on Captain Bullard and
protested that the ship was discriminating against
them by curtailing the men's liberty. They also
demanded that Brimstone Bill be ejected from
the ship.

"Practically the entire crew goes ashore every
day," said Bullard, shortly, "and may spend the
night if they choose. What they do ashore is
their own affair, not mine. If they prefer to listen
to sermons instead of roistering, that's up to them.
As far as the preacher is concerned, he is a
refugee civilian, whose safety I am responsible
for. He is in no sense under orders of the Patrol
Force. If you consider you have a competitive
problem, solve it in your own way."

The dive owners' impatience and perplexity
turned into despair. Something had to be done.
They did all that they knew to do. They next
complained to the local administrator—a creature
of Fenning's—of the unfair competition. That
worthy descended upon the tabernacle shortly
thereafter, backed by a small army of suddenly
acquired deputies, to close the place as being an
unlicensed entertainment. He was met by a
determined Patrol lieutenant and a group of hard-faced
Polliwog guards who not only refused to permit
the administrator to serve his warrant, but
informed him that the meeting was immune from
political interference. It was not amusement, but
religious instruction, and as such protected by the
Constitution of the Federation.

The astounded administrator looked at the steely
eyes of the officer and down to the browned, firm
hand lying carelessly on the butt of a Mark XII
blaster, and back again into the granite face. He
mumbled something about being sorry and backed
away. He could see little to be gained by frontal
attack. He went back to his office and sent off a
hasty ethergram to his esteemed patron, then sat
haggardly awaiting orders. Already the senator
had made several inquiries as to receipts since the
cruiser's arrival, but he had delayed reporting.

The answer was short and to the point. "Take
direct action," it said. The administrator scratched
his head. Sure, he was the law on Juno, but the
Pollux represented the law, too, and it had both
the letter of it and the better force on its side.
So he did the other thing—the obvious thing for a
Junovian to do. He sent out a batch of ethergrams
to nearby asteroids and then called a mass meeting
of all his local henchmen.

It took three days for the armada of rusty little
prospectors' ships to finish fluttering down onto
the rocky wastes on the far side of Herapolis.
They disgorged an army of tough miners and
bruisers from every little rock in the vicinity. The
mob that formed that night was both numerous
and well-primed. Plenty of free drinks and the
mutual display of flexed biceps had put them in
the mood. At half an hour before the tabernacle
meeting was due to break up, the dive keepers all
shut up shop, and taking their minions with them
began to line the dark streets between Brimstone's
hall and the skydock.

"Yah! Sissies!" jeered the mob, as the phalanx
of bluejackets came sweeping down, arm in arm
and singing one of Brimstone's militant hymns in
unison. By the dim street lights one could see
that their faces were lit up with the
self-satisfaction of the recently purified. In the midst
of the phalanx the little preacher trotted along,
surrounded by the inevitable trio of petty officers
with the night's collection.

An empty bottle was flung, more jeers, and a
volley of small meteoric stones. The column
marched on, scorning to indulge in street brawling.
Then a square ahead they came to the miners,
drawn up in solid formation from wall to wall.
The prospectors were armed with pick handles and
other improvised clubs. They did not jeer, but
stood silent and threatening.

"Wedge formation," called Benton, who was up
ahead. "Charge!"

The battle of the Saints and Sinners will be
remembered long in Juno. That no one was killed
was due to the restraint exercised by Benton and
MacKay, who were along with the church party.
Only they and the administrator had blasters, and
the administrator was not there. Having
marshaled his army, he thought it the better part of
valor to withdraw to his office where he could get
in quick touch with the senator if need be.

Dawn found a deserted street, but a littered one.
Splintered clubs, tattered clothes, and patches of
drying blood abounded, but there were no corpses.
The Polliwogs had fought their way through,
carrying their wounded with them. The miners
and the hoodlums had fled, leaving their wounded
sprawling on the ground behind, as is the custom
in the rough rocklets. But the wounded suffered
only from minor broken bones or stuns, and sooner
or later crawled away to some dive where they
found sanctuary. There had been no referees, so
there was no official way to counteract the
bombastic claims at once set up by both sides. But
it is noteworthy that the Polliwogs went to church
again the next night and were unmolested by so
much as a catcall on the way back.

"I don't like this, captain," Moore had said that
morning as they looked in on the crowded sick bay
where the doctors were applying splints and
bandages. "I never have felt that charlatan could be
anything but bad for the ship. He gouges the men
just as thoroughly as the experts here would have.
Now this!"

"They would have thrown their money around,
anyway," grinned Bullard, "and fought, too. It's
better to do both sober than the other way."

That afternoon the administrator rallied his
bruised and battered forces and held a council of
war. None would admit it, but a formation has
advantages over a heterogeneous mob even in a
free-for-all. What do next? There was a good
deal of heated discussion, but the ultimate answer
was—infiltration. The tabernacle sign read, "Come
one, come all," and there was no admission. So
that night the hall was surrounded by waiting
miners and a mob of the local bouncers long before
the Rev. Zander arrived. Tonight they would
rough-house inside.

He beamed upon them.

"Come in, all of you. There are seats for all.
If not, my regular boys can stand in the back."

The roughs would have preferred to the standing
position, but the thing was to get in and mix.
So they filed in. By the time Brimstone Bill
mounted the rostrum the house was crowded, but
it could have held more at a pinch.

He was in good form that night. At his best.
"Why Risk Damnation?" was his theme, and as he
put it, the question was unanswerable. It was
suicidal folly. The gaping miners let the words
soak in with astonished awe; never had they
thought of things that way. Here and there a
bouncer shivered when he thought of the perpetual
fires that were kept blazing for him on some
far-away planet called Hell. They supposed it
must be a planet—far-off places usually were.
They were not a flush lot, but their contribution
to the "cause" that night was not negligible.
There was little cash money in it, but a number
of fine nuggets, and more than one set of brass
knuckles and a pair of nicely balanced blackjacks.
Altogether Brimstone Bill was satisfied with his
haul, especially when he saw the rapt expressions
on their faces as they made their way out of the
tabernacle.

The administrator raved and swore, but it did
no good. The chastened miners were down early
at the smelter office to draw what credits they
had due; the bouncers went back to their dives
and quit their jobs, insisting on being paid off in
cash, not promises. All that was for the cause.
There were many fights that day between groups
of the converted and groups of the ones who still
dwelt in darkness, but the general results were
inconclusive. The upshot of it was that the
remainder of the town went to the tabernacle that
night to find out what monkey business had been
pulled on the crowd they had sent first.

The collection that night was truly stupendous,
for the sermon's effect on the greater crowd was
just what it had been on all the others. Not only
was there a great deal of cash, but more weapons
and much jewelry—though a good deal of the
jewelry upon examination turned out to be paste.
The administrator had come—baffled and angry—to
see for himself. He saw, and everyone was
surprised to note how much cash he carried about
his person. What no one saw was the ethergram
he sent off to the senator that night bearing his
resignation and extolling the works of one
Brimstone Bill, preacher extraordinary. He was thankful
that he had been shown the light before it was
too late.

An extraordinary by-product of the evening
was that early the next morning a veritable army
of miners descended upon the skydock and
volunteered to help scrape the cruiser's hull.
Brimstone's dwelling, they said, should shine and
without delay. That night even the dockmaster had
to grudgingly pronounce that the ship was clean.
The job was done. She was free to go.

Bullard lost no time in blasting out. Brimstone
Bill was tearful over leaving the last crop
ungleaned. He insisted that they had been caught
unawares the first night, and the second they were
sure to bring more. But Bullard said no, they had
enough money for both their needs. The ship
could stay no longer. Bullard further said that
he would be busy with the details of the voyage
for the next several days. After that they would
have an accounting. In the meantime there would
be no more preaching. Brimstone Bill was to keep
close to his room.

At once all the fox in Brimstone rose to the top.
This man in gold braid had used him to exploit
not only his own crew but the people of an entire
planetoid and adjacent ones. Now he was trying
to cheat him out of his share of the take.

"I won't do it," said Brimstone, defiantly. "I've
the run of the ship, you said. If you try to
double-cross me, I'll spill everything."

"Spill," said Bullard, calmly, "but don't forget
what happened at Venus. The effect of the gadgets
wears off, you know. I think you will be safe in
the chaplain's room if I keep a guard on the door.
But if you'd rather, there's always the brig—"

"I get you," said Brimstone Bill, sullenly, and
turned to go. He knew now he had been outsmarted,
which was a thing that hurt a man who
lived by his wits.

"You will still get," Bullard hurled after him,
"one half the net, as I promised you, and an easy
sentence or no sentence at all. Now get out of
my sight and stay out."

It was a queer assembly that night—or sleep
period—for a space cruiser of the line. They met
in the room known to them as the "treasure
house." Present were the captain, the paymaster, Lieutenant
Benton, and two of the petty officers who had
acted as deacons of Brimstone's strange church.
The third was missing for the reason he was
standing sentry duty before the ex-preacher's door.
Their first job was to count the loot. The money
had already been sorted and piled, the paper ten
to one hundred sol notes being bundled neatly,
and the small coins counted into bags. The
merchandise had been appraised at auction value and
was stacked according to kind.

"Now let's see, Pay," said Bullard, consulting
his notes, "what is the total amount the men had
on the books before we hit Juno?"

Pay told him. Bullard kicked at the biggest
stack of money of all.

"Right. This is it. Put it in your safe and
restore the credits. Now, how much did the hall
cost, sign, lights and all?"

Bullard handed that over.

"The rest is net—what we took from the asteroid
people. Half is mine, half is Brimstone's. The
total?"

Benton was looking uneasy. He had wondered
all the time about what the fifty-fifty split meant.
He was still wondering what the skipper meant to
do with his. But the skipper was a queer one and
unpredictable.

"Fifty-four thousand, three hundred and eight
sols," said the paymaster, "including the merchandise
items."

"Fair enough. Take that over, too, into the
special account. Then draw a check for half of it
to Brimstone. Put the other half in the ship's
amusement fund. They've earned it. They can
throw a dance with it when we get to Luna. I
guess that's all."

Bullard beckoned Benton to follow and left the
storeroom, leaving the two p.o.'s to help the
paymaster cart the valuables away to his own
bailiwick. There were still other matters to dispose
of. Up in the cabin Benton laid the "gadgets" on
the desk.

"What will I do with these, sir?" he wanted to
know. "They're honeys! I hate to throw them
into the disintegrator."

"That is what you will do, though," said Bullard.
"They are too dangerous to have around. They
might fall into improper hands."

"Now that it's over, would you mind telling me
how these worked?"

"Not at all. We've known for a century that
high-frequency sound waves do queer things, like
reducing glass to powder. They also have
peculiar effects on organisms. One frequency kills
bacteria instantly, another causes red corpuscles
to disintegrate. You can give a man fatal anemia
by playing a tune to him he cannot hear. These
gadgets are nothing more than supersonic
vibrators of different pitch such that sounded
together they give an inaudible minor chord that
affects a portion of the human brain. When they
are vibrated along with audible speech, the
listener is compelled to believe implicitly in every
word he hears. The effect persists for two or three
days. That is why I say they are too dangerous
to keep. Brimstone could just as well have
incited to riot and murder as preach his brand of
salvation for the money it brought."

"I see. And the ones carried in our pockets by
me and the boys were counter-vibrators, so we
didn't feel the effects?"

"Yes. Like the ones you rigged in my box that
night we had the try-out up forward. Neither I
nor Commander Moore heard anything but ranting
and drivel."

"Pretty slick," said Benton.

Yes, pretty slick, thought Bullard. He had
stayed the prescribed time on Juno and had paid
off the crew and granted full liberty. Outside the
five men in his confidence, not a member of the
crew had had a hint that it was not desired that he
go ashore and waste his money and ruin his health.

"I'm thinking that the Pollux is not likely to be
ordered back to Juno soon," said Bullard absently.
But Benton wasn't listening. He was scratching
his head.

"That little guy Brimstone," he said. "He isn't
such a bad egg, come to think of it. Now that he's
pulled us out of our hole, do you think you can
get him out of his, sir?"

"He never was in the hole," said Bullard, reaching
for the logbook. "I needn't have kept him at
all once I let him out of the brig. Read it—it was
on your watch and you signed it."

Benton took the book and read.

"At 2204 captain held examination of prisoners;
remanded all to brig to await action of the Bureau of
Justice except one Ignatz Zander, Earthman. Zander
was released from custody, but will be retained under
Patrol jurisdiction until arrival at base in the event the
Bureau should wish to utilize him as witness."

Benton looked puzzled.

"I don't remember writing anything like that,"
he said.

"The official final log is prepared in this office,"
reminded Bullard, softly. "You evidently don't
read all you sign."